The Sheen of the Silk

Forty-five

ANNA STOOD IN EIRENE VATATZES’S ELEGANT, QUIET bedroom and looked down at the woman lying on the bed. Her clothes were rumpled and marked with blood, and around her neck there were stains of an ointment. In two places was also the yellow mucus of suppuration. There was an open ulcer on her cheek and another just under her jawline on the opposite side. Her hands were covered in red weals, some already swollen where the pus was gathering into a head.

Anna knew from her son, Demetrios, that his father, Gregory, was due to return shortly from Alexandria, this time to remain indefinitely. Eirene was in physical pain, but her distress was greater.

“Is the rest of your body affected as well?” Anna asked gently.

Eirene glared at her. “That doesn’t matter.” She made a sharp gesture with her hands. “Cure my face. Do whatever you have to. The cost is unimportant.” She drew in a long breath. “So is the pain.” Her voice was brittle; Anna could hear the edges of the words like shards of glass grating together.

Anna’s mind raced over every possibility she could think of, every treatment, however radical-Christian, Jewish, or Arabic. Were any of them of use if the source of the illness was the fear in Eirene’s mind?

Anna’s imagination flew to the wounds she guessed at: the rejection of clever, ugly, vulnerable Eirene for the sensuous Zoe, who would laugh and enjoy, then leave, taking whatever she wanted and needing nothing. Was Gregory a man bored by what he could have and fascinated by what he could not? How shallow. How cruel. And yet how desperately understandable.

What was the point in healing the skin from outside, only to have it erupt again a day later?

“Don’t stand there like a fool!” Eirene snapped, twisting a little to look at her. “If you don’t know what to do, say so. I’ll call someone else. If you’re in poverty, for God’s sake take some money, but don’t stare at me as if you expected me to heal myself. What are you going to tell me? That I should pray? Do you think I haven’t prayed all my life, you stupid…” Suddenly she turned her face away, tears wet on her blemished cheeks.

“I am considering what remedies there are, and which would be best,” Anna said gently. Some form of intoxication would relieve the self-consciousness that prevented Eirene from allowing her passion or her anger to show and that had perhaps masked the laughter that could have made her less easy to read. It might even allow the sensuality that could have made her entertaining and just beyond Gregory’s total reach. It would be a short-term answer, but what use was a long-term cure if she perished of misery now?

“I will give you an ointment to take away the heat,” she said aloud.

“I don’t care what it feels like, you fool!” Eirene shouted at her. “Can you see nothing, you-”

“And the redness,” Anna finished calmly. Eirene needed her to understand, yet if she did, that would be intolerable also, another humiliation. “And an infusion to heal it from within, so it does not recur,” she added. “For the suppuration you will just have to wait. I will wash them with a tincture I have prepared, and put on light bandages to keep them from rubbing.”

Eirene looked taken aback, but she would not apologize. Physicians were like good servants; hardly equals. “Thank you,” she said awkwardly.

Anna fetched clean water from one of the servants and dropped in a small measure of liquid from a little vial. The sharp aroma filled the air, but it was pleasant, invigorating. She began to wash each individual sore, working gently and slowly. She intended to be here as long as possible.

Since the last time she had been here, Demetrios’s words had raced in her brain. It still seemed absurd, and she remembered his contempt with a heat of embarrassment. He had said the idea of usurping Michael was ridiculous. She knew that to succeed, one would have to overcome the Varangian Guard. Demetrios knew them, even had friends among them. It would not be possible. One would need to have the army with you. Antoninus was a soldier, he would know that. And the navy, and the merchants, which Justinian would know. His ever increasing business had been in such things.

One would need sound economic advice and access to the Treasury. Since then, Anna had learned that the lord of the Treasury was Eirene’s cousin Theodorus Doukas, and they were close. Some people had suggested that at least part of his brilliance was actually Eirene’s, her foresight, her genius with figures.

And what could the easy, charming Esaias Glabas do in such a plan? Was he cleverer than anyone supposed? And Helena? Was she a part of this plot or merely Bessarion’s wife?

“They are not as deep as I had feared,” Anna said, dabbing gently at one of the scars, cleaning away the suppuration. “I think it may heal over without leaving a mark. Last time I was here I spoke a little with Demetrios. He was most interesting.”

“Really…,” Eirene said with skepticism.

“I think so.” Anna positioned the bandage, easing it smooth, and bound it lightly. “I’m told he has friends among the Varangian Guard.” She bent to her work again.

“Yes,” Eirene agreed, wincing as one of the worst sores was washed. “I think they are grateful that a man of Demetrios’s rank should befriend them. Some noble families treat them less courteously. Not rudely so much as with indifference.” She smiled bleakly. “Like a good servant.”

“You mean Bessarion? Or Justinian Lascaris?”

“Justinian less so. Of course to Bessarion they were heathens, for the most part. Certainly those from the far north.” She bit her lip, forcing herself not to pull away from the pain.

Anna affected not to notice. “Someone told me Esaias Glabas was talented. Is that true?”

“Good heavens, no!” Eirene said with contempt. “He could tell a story well, and he knew endless jokes, most of them unrepeatable in front of women. He could flatter, and keep his temper even when provoked.”

Anna smiled. “You didn’t like him.” It was more an observation than a question.

“He is not dead,” Eirene snapped. “At least not as far as I know. I think Demetrios would have mentioned it.”

“They were friends?” Anna did not look up from her work.

“I suppose so. Esaias was really a companion of the emperor’s son, Andronicus. They used to go riding together, and to the horse races. And of course drinking, gambling, parties of one sort and another.”

“I can’t see Bessarion liking that,” Anna remarked. “From what people say, he was remarkably serious.”

“The word you are looking for is humorless,” Eirene said wryly, at last looking at the sore as Anna finished bandaging it. “You are gentle. Thank you.”

Eirene was too clever to be fooled. If the wild idea in Anna’s mind was right, it would be not only pointless but dangerous to awaken her suspicions. She felt her hands shaking. “I’m sorry,” she apologized.

“It’s nothing,” Eirene said, dismissing the slight brush of Anna’s hand over one of the other wounds. “You are quite right. Bessarion did not like Esaias. I think he merely used him.”

Anna took a deep, quivering breath. “In his struggle to… to save the Church?” She invested her voice with puzzlement, as if she did not understand. “I cannot imagine him working to indulge in such… parties.”

There was a minute’s fleeting pity in Eirene’s eyes for the eunuch robbed of manhood, which she took Anna to be, of both its pleasures and its weaknesses. “He didn’t,” she said gently. “Nor Justinian. Esaias was planning the biggest party with horse races, from the night after Bessarion was killed. It would have been superb. Esaias was a magnificent host; I should add that to his list of qualities.”

Anna pretended interest. “Really? Horse racing? That can be exciting to watch. I suppose everyone would have been there, even Bessarion?”

Eirene hesitated.

“Wouldn’t they?” Anna’s heart was thundering inside her.

Eirene looked away. “No. I believe on that occasion Bessarion was supposed to have an audience with the emperor.”

The silence in the room was heavy, almost prickling. Anna started to roll up the unused bandages and put them away. “So the emperor would not have been there?”

“It hardly matters now,” Eirene said, a sudden, hard edge to her voice. “Bessarion and Antoninus are dead, and Justinian is in exile.” She looked at her bandaged arms. “Thank you.”

“I’ll come and dress them again tomorrow,” Anna told her, standing up. “And bring you more herbs.”

Working quietly in the evening, alone in the room where she kept her medicines, Anna crushed leaves, ground roots and stems, sometimes with mortar and pestle, always being careful never to let one herb contaminate another; and all the while, thoughts crowded her mind as she turned over every possible interpretation of what she had learned.

Did she have all the pieces that mattered, if only she could put them in the right order? Bessarion was a religious fanatic devoted to the Orthodox Church. He was a Comnenos, one of the old imperial families. He was passionate to prevent the union with Rome that Michael Palaeologus had already begun, and that was dividing the nation, because he believed it was the only way to avert another invasion.

Justinian had quarreled several times with Bessarion; the last and worst argument was just before the murder. It made a picture she could no longer deny. They had planned to kill Michael so Bessarion could usurp the throne. Justinian would help him. Esaias and Antoninus were to hold Andronicus, perhaps even kill him also. Then Bessarion would withdraw all agreement to the union with Rome-calling on those loyal to the Church to support him, and that support would naturally be led by Constantine.

All the difficulties had been foreseen and planned for. Justinian to deal with the merchants and the harbormasters. Antoninus to hold the leaders of the army; Demetrios himself to have bribed or otherwise won over the Varangian Guard on duty that night and, once the emperor was dead, to give their loyalty to the new emperor, Bessarion.

Who would actually have killed Michael? The Varangian Guard would not let anyone close enough. There could be only one answer to that. Zoe would do it, if she believed it was to save Byzantium.

Anna poured powder into a jar, labeled it, and cleaned her tools, then began again.

Dynasties had changed violently before and no doubt would again. The more she thought of it, the more did Bessarion seem just the nature of fanatic to whom that would be the necessary and noble thing to do.

It was an explanation that answered far too much for her to discount it. She would have to struggle with the rest, but immeasurably more carefully-and never for the second in which it takes to say a word or make an unguarded gesture forget that all the rest of the conspirators were still here, still alive, and perhaps seeking another pretender to the throne, such as Demetrios Vatatzes.

She shivered as the knots of fear wound tighter inside her.

The next patient she treated required several days of her attention, and he was in the Venetian Quarter, down by the shore. He had been quite severely cut when he was attacked in a brawl near the docks. His family were afraid to ask a local Christian doctor, and Anna’s reputation had spread.

He was bleeding profusely. She had no choice but to try a method she had seen her father use in extreme cases. He had learned it traveling in his youth, north and eastward beyond the Black Sea. She collected the blood in a clean pot and put it near the fire.

Then she cleaned the wound and packed it with cotton cloth until the bleeding eased. It took some little time, during which she talked to the man gently to ease his fear and gave him a tincture to help the pain.

When the blood in the pot had at last coagulated, she took it and painted it gently on the raw wound, sealing it over. When she was sure there was no more bleeding, she mixed the most healing and strengthening herbs, finely powdered, into a paste softened with butter and used them to prevent the cloth of the bandage from sticking to the wound. She stayed in the house with him, going out only to purchase more herbs and then returning to sit by his bedside.

Hearing the rhythm and patterns of the Venetian tongue around her made it impossible not to think of Giuliano Dandolo. She had no idea why he had left so suddenly, but she was aware of missing him, although in a way his absence was also a relief. It was impossible that they should ever be more than occasional friends, people able to speak of dreams deeper than the surface, joys and sorrows that touched the bone, and laughing at the same moment at small absurdities.

But he awoke something else in her that she could not afford.

Yes, it was a relief that Giuliano Dandolo had gone back to Venice. Like Eirene Vatatzes, she needed a little numbing, a rest from the pain of caring.